KEARNEY — The city of Kearney will contribute $5 million to help construct the Rural Health Education Building at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
The Kearney City Council voted 4-0, with Councilor Tami James Moore, a UNK professor, abstaining. It will be paid over a 15-year period from the city’s special sales tax fund and utility fund.
City Manager Michael Morgan said he supports the city’s involvement in building the 100,000-square-foot building that will train physicians and other health care professionals to ease rural Nebraska’s chronic shortage of medical professionals.
According to University of Nebraska Medical Center statistics, Nebraska has a 4,000-nurse shortage, but the situation is even more worrisome regarding physicians.
In 2015, UNMC and UNK teamed up to build and operate the Health Science Education Complex on the west campus at UNK. Supporters of that project believed that health professionals trained in rural Nebraska are more likely to practice in rural settings.
People are also reading…
So far, 84% of HSEC graduates are remaining in rural Nebraska.
UNK Vice Chancellor for Finance Jon Watts said the Heath Science Education Complex that UNK and UNMC have jointly operated since 2015 now employs 122 people and has an annual economic impact of $15.1 million.
When it’s open in a few years, the $85 million, 100,000-square-foot Rural Health Education Building will double the HSEC in size and economic impact. The facility will employ 240 and have an annual impact of $35 million.
Providing the $5 million boost was compared to the city’s economic commitment to bringing the Central Nebraska Veterans’ Home to Kearney five years ago.
The city of Kearney committed $10.1 million to bring the Veterans’ Home to Kearney and was budgeted in fiscal 2015 to spend $2.6 million on the project.
UNK Senior Vice Chancellor Charles Bicak said during Tuesday’s council meeting that the HSEC has 308 health science students at capacity and that 84% of graduates are remaining in rural Nebraska.
Bicak said when the Rural Health Education building opens 5 of the 6 colleges of medicine will be present in Kearney. The College of Dentistry will remain in Omaha. Forty students will study to become physicians and “they will complete their work here in Kearney,” Bicak said.
The Rural Health Education Building will cost $85 million. Of that sum, $50 million will come from the state and $35 million will come through private fundraising by UNK and UNMC.
Morgan explained how the city of Kearney would provide its $5 million for the health education project.
Morgan said the city would pledge to give $330,000 annually for 15 years, beginning in fiscal 2025.
The city of Kearney would pay the $330,000 per year for 14 years with the payment on the 15th year being $368,000.
Two-thirds of the annual payment — $220,000 — would come from the city’s special sales tax fund. The remaining one third of the payment — $110,000 — would come from the city’s utility fund.
